4 ms·

I'm sad and disappointed that simply charging a fair price in return for offering something of value - with no other strings attached - has become so out of fas

I'm sad and disappointed that simply charging a fair price in return for offering something of value - with no other strings attached - has become so out of fashion in tech world. Almost everyone running tech businesses seems to assume that subscriptions or data capitalism are the only way to make any money these days. But I have paid for good software in the past and I know plenty of indie developers who still sell software like a product and do OK with that model. Copies of great software like Firefox could surely be sold - for actual money - to the kind of people who value its independence, privacy, and user focus. Offer free security updates for some reasonable period similar to an LTS release. The web moves fast enough that a lot of people will want to buy upgrades quite regularly anyway just for the new features. Firefox appears to have close to 200M active users based on Mozilla's published data at https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/user-activity https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/user-activity. If they could get 1/20 of those users to pay them an average of $10 per year - that's less than one month of a standard subscription to a major streaming service in most Western countries - then that's $100M/year in revenues. Based on the public financial statements that's on the same scale as their subscription and advertising revenue and their annual spend on development activities. Another possibility might be to hide some of the developer resources behind some token paywall. Almost everyone I know who works in web dev uses MDN regularly. Firefox dev tools have a lot of useful things about them. Then maybe you can even keep the main browser free and get some revenue from devs - who are mostly going to file it as a business expense anyway and whose employers benefit greatly from the continued existence and maintenance of these resources. Sure everyone would complain - just as everyone complains about paying a few bucks for a good text or graphics editor they use for hundreds or thousands of hours per year to make 1000x the asking price. But the value is obviously there to many people. I think a lot of Firefox users in particular would probably respect the transparent attempt to keep the lights on without compromising on the USPs that make Firefox attractive to those users in the first place.

ranger_danger 2y ago
I think if they believed there would be enough people to justify charging for the software to make that model work, they would do it. But I don't think it's actually viable, I think the number of people that would pay for firefox is much lower than you think. Consider how many other similarly popular software programs charge small fees for their app... I can't even think of a single one. And you can only really charge for binaries, because as soon as one person gets the source, they can distribute it, and then they (or others) can make their own (free) binaries, and then why would anyone pay money anymore.
- Silhouette 2y ago
  I don't expect a high proportion of people would pay for a browser. My point is that if you're starting at 200M users you don't need a high proportion. You just need a loyal core of fans who see enough value to play the "whale" role and prop up the rest. Given the kind of people that Firefox has traditionally appealed to in the first place I don't think that's an entirely unrealistic scenario. As for other apps - for my own small development businesses we have spent a lot more than $10/user on all-day-every-day development tools like text editors and diff tools. Also on several other areas like graphics, business admin and communications. For a browser and related resources that we also use on a daily basis whenever we're working on web projects it would be a very quick decision. I don't accept your premise about only charging for the binaries. You're not going after the people who would rip you off anyway with this model. You're going after the people who genuinely value your product and want to support its continued development. They're going to pay a modest amount without much thought just as we do for several of the software packages we use - despite almost all of them having free (but not necessarily as good in our opinion) competitors available.
  - ranger_danger 2y ago
    > They're going to pay a modest amount without much thought Highly disagree... I think if you've been providing a free and open source product to your loyal fans for over 20 years, then suddenly start charging for it, isn't going to get people stepping over each other to hand their money over.
- wtallis 2y ago
  I also doubt whether that business model could work. But I don't think doubt is the reason Mozilla hasn't tried it. They won't go that route because the best-case outcome is that it becomes a sustainable but small business. They aren't interested in something that doesn't have a chance at turning into a jackpot.
Uvix 2y ago
Selling browsers was tried, back in the 90s. They lost to free, when the audience was much more limited. Trying to sell a browser now is an even weaker proposition to most users. I also think you're overselling how many devs would pay for their resources. Individual contractors? Sure. But anybody salaried? My employer's response wouldn't be "sure, we'll pay for MDN & Firefox dev tools for all our devs"; it'll be "go use Chrome or Edge to debug, and use GitHub Copilot if you've got questions on how the web works". (I recognize that Copilot is crap as an MDN substitute, but the beancounters will take "we're already paying for that" over "new expense" any day.)
- ivanmontillam 2y ago
  > Trying to sell a browser now is an even weaker proposition to most users. To most users yes, but a group of power users like me can make them life-changing money. I'd happily pay a monthly subscription for my web browser. It just does not need to be a U.S. entity. Otherwise, people without a Visa or Mastercard will be left out. Crypto is fine for this use case.
  - wyclif 2y ago
    It's interesting to me the uphill battle Kagi is fighting to get people to pay for ad-free search and browsing. I wish them all the best because I think it's a fight worth having. https://help.kagi.com/kagi/why-kagi/why-pay-for-search.html https://help.kagi.com/kagi/why-kagi/why-pay-for-search.html
    - ivanmontillam 2y ago
      Kagi is fighting the good fight. I admire them, though I'm not yet a customer. I stumbled upon their Orion docs, I find the following concerning: Orion is a free, lightning-fast, privacy-protecting browser for Apple users, open to the web and all its standards and protocols. One day, we hope everyone will say Orion is the best browser for all Apple devices. We're glad you're here! That's fine and dandy, but I'm not an Apple user (I'm South American). I'd assume Apple is the larger user base for their U.S. customers, but outside of the U.S., Apple is not really a thing.
soupbowl 2y ago
Mozilla can't be trusted to spend their money in a way that improves their browser or their market share. We will never know, but I think Mozilla would squander $100M/year from users. It makes me sad because I have been a fan of Mozilla and Firefox for most of my life.
- cmcaleer 2y ago
  > Mozilla can't be trusted This is really just the core of it. I probably trust Mozilla about as much as I trust Google at this point. Leadership is non-existent. Mission and goal is lost. Pointless acquisitions galore. Wasting money on innumerable social programs. They’ve been at this for maybe a decade at this point. I want to believe things will change, but…

ranger_danger 2y ago

I think if they believed there would be enough people to justify charging for the software to make that model work, they would do it. But I don't think it's actually viable, I think the number of people that would pay for firefox is much lower than you think. Consider how many other similarly popular software programs charge small fees for their app... I can't even think of a single one. And you can only really charge for binaries, because as soon as one person gets the source, they can distribute it, and then they (or others) can make their own (free) binaries, and then why would anyone pay money anymore.

Silhouette 2y ago
I don't expect a high proportion of people would pay for a browser. My point is that if you're starting at 200M users you don't need a high proportion. You just need a loyal core of fans who see enough value to play the "whale" role and prop up the rest. Given the kind of people that Firefox has traditionally appealed to in the first place I don't think that's an entirely unrealistic scenario. As for other apps - for my own small development businesses we have spent a lot more than $10/user on all-day-every-day development tools like text editors and diff tools. Also on several other areas like graphics, business admin and communications. For a browser and related resources that we also use on a daily basis whenever we're working on web projects it would be a very quick decision. I don't accept your premise about only charging for the binaries. You're not going after the people who would rip you off anyway with this model. You're going after the people who genuinely value your product and want to support its continued development. They're going to pay a modest amount without much thought just as we do for several of the software packages we use - despite almost all of them having free (but not necessarily as good in our opinion) competitors available.
- ranger_danger 2y ago
  > They're going to pay a modest amount without much thought Highly disagree... I think if you've been providing a free and open source product to your loyal fans for over 20 years, then suddenly start charging for it, isn't going to get people stepping over each other to hand their money over.
wtallis 2y ago
I also doubt whether that business model could work. But I don't think doubt is the reason Mozilla hasn't tried it. They won't go that route because the best-case outcome is that it becomes a sustainable but small business. They aren't interested in something that doesn't have a chance at turning into a jackpot.

Uvix 2y ago

Selling browsers was tried, back in the 90s. They lost to free, when the audience was much more limited. Trying to sell a browser now is an even weaker proposition to most users. I also think you're overselling how many devs would pay for their resources. Individual contractors? Sure. But anybody salaried? My employer's response wouldn't be "sure, we'll pay for MDN & Firefox dev tools for all our devs"; it'll be "go use Chrome or Edge to debug, and use GitHub Copilot if you've got questions on how the web works". (I recognize that Copilot is crap as an MDN substitute, but the beancounters will take "we're already paying for that" over "new expense" any day.)

ivanmontillam 2y ago
> Trying to sell a browser now is an even weaker proposition to most users. To most users yes, but a group of power users like me can make them life-changing money. I'd happily pay a monthly subscription for my web browser. It just does not need to be a U.S. entity. Otherwise, people without a Visa or Mastercard will be left out. Crypto is fine for this use case.
- wyclif 2y ago
  It's interesting to me the uphill battle Kagi is fighting to get people to pay for ad-free search and browsing. I wish them all the best because I think it's a fight worth having. https://help.kagi.com/kagi/why-kagi/why-pay-for-search.html https://help.kagi.com/kagi/why-kagi/why-pay-for-search.html
  - ivanmontillam 2y ago
    Kagi is fighting the good fight. I admire them, though I'm not yet a customer. I stumbled upon their Orion docs, I find the following concerning: Orion is a free, lightning-fast, privacy-protecting browser for Apple users, open to the web and all its standards and protocols. One day, we hope everyone will say Orion is the best browser for all Apple devices. We're glad you're here! That's fine and dandy, but I'm not an Apple user (I'm South American). I'd assume Apple is the larger user base for their U.S. customers, but outside of the U.S., Apple is not really a thing.

soupbowl 2y ago

Mozilla can't be trusted to spend their money in a way that improves their browser or their market share. We will never know, but I think Mozilla would squander $100M/year from users. It makes me sad because I have been a fan of Mozilla and Firefox for most of my life.

cmcaleer 2y ago
> Mozilla can't be trusted This is really just the core of it. I probably trust Mozilla about as much as I trust Google at this point. Leadership is non-existent. Mission and goal is lost. Pointless acquisitions galore. Wasting money on innumerable social programs. They’ve been at this for maybe a decade at this point. I want to believe things will change, but…